In the Shadow of the Lilac: Finale: Requiem
Luceat Eis…
Welcome to In the Shadow of the Lilac! This is the conclusion to our wholesome spooky serial. If you’d like to receive occasional mysteries like this in your inbox, please be sure to subscribe to the section “It was a Dark and Stormy Night.” Thank you!
Synopsis: When Melody and Zion Holcomb move to Lavender Vale ahead of their parents, they expect the peaceful Gilded Age town to be a breath of fresh air. They can’t begin to guess that a century-old mystery has been lying in wait for them to solve. . . and the answers lie buried in the halls of the Hotel Lilac.
Last seen: Grant and Zion raced the clock to save Melody from a century-old poison, but the spectres weren’t about to admit her to any hospital.
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Arms bound behind his back, Zion sat in the old wooden chair where he’d been placed, pushed back from the table with its dusty gingham tablecloth. He could feel a dull ache setting in between his eyes.
He had known better. He had let Melody’s certainty about Grant put him in the position of declaring Grant safe. If he’d gone with his first instinct – “I wouldn’t talk to him again-” she wouldn’t be lying here, with little hope of making it to any emergency room.
Lyle’s voice broke through his thoughts, addressed to Grant, who stood, waiting, beside Melody.
“On behalf of our esteemed guest, you can leave the girl alone for a few minutes, Avery. See to it that the car won’t be found,” Lyle announced.
“…I knew you weren’t fond of my car, Grant, but seriously.”
Avery gave Zion a passing appraisal and stopping, slipped the skeleton costume onto Lys.
“Follow, Bones!” He snapped his fingers and left the room.
Lyle watched them go until the door was shut.
“Mm. Now that he’s out of the way. In his defense,” Lyle confided, taking a seat next to Zion’s and scooting it nearer, “Grant has no idea that he’s ’Avery’ and ‘Avery’ has no knowledge that he’s Grant.”
“Exactly how did you work that out.”
“Simple. I caused it. Unintentionally, of course. When he was just a boy, perhaps fifteen or seventeen years ago, he had a habit of wandering around the woods. He stumbled onto this cottage, the first time anyone had, because a storm had felled a tree over some of the brambles. I just wanted to frighten him. I had already planned for such an occasion – a grisly faux dead body lying on the bed, a million cobwebs, a bloody diary prophesying that Avery would return to possess anyone who found his home, and bring harm to anyone who touched his garden. Anyway - but I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? You want to know how I get mixed up in this masquerade.”
“Opal.”
“Ah-” Lyle regarded him with a little surprise. “An astute guess. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the Wilder family selected this location for the Lilac to hide the opal veins they found during a hike in Lavender Vale. I found the mines when I began working at the Lilac years ago. There’s an entrance to them hidden behind Delilah’s portrait, if you press the right combination of rose petals on the wall.”
“Avery’s skills were ingenious, even at hiding the mines, not to mention that he and Colonel Wilder were brilliant when it came to smuggling the opal out to keep anyone from guessing its origin. They’d send the rough opal off with the wealthy select, whom they could trust to keep a monetary secret; they would have an agreement to get the opal polished and sold, and in turn, the wealthy not only got a small percentage, but also special treatment at the Lilac.”
“You see, Massachusetts is hardly known for opal, Zion. In fact, even common opal is extremely rare, and precious opal? when it’s found, no one discloses the location! Myself, included. As the years went on, Avery was in sole charge of the opal mines, and Col. Wilder was the only other man who knew of it; but Avery abandoned the opal mines after Delilah’s death; he went insane, as Grant could tell you, if he were willing and present. Hence the ‘OG’ Avery’s terrorizing of any woman whose situation reminded him of his Delilah. I’m only grateful that Avery left a significant amount of opal, enough for me to retire to a saner civilization in Europe when I’ve milked these stones enough.”
“Something tells me that’s where Grant comes in,” Zion said dryly.
“Indeed. It’s been tedious work to keep snoopers away from the mine entrances and from finding the passages from the Hotel. Anytime I needed a break, I could switch Avery’s personality on with a perfectly calculated apparition of the spectre, and he would do whatever I needed him to: scare others away, make a threat, whatever. Unfortunately, Melody matching the specifications for the murders the real Avery committed likewise switched his personality on, and he went a little overboard.”
“I’d like to see what you call an understatement.”
“Your current state of admiration?”
“You’re sick,” Zion spat.
“No, Grant is. I believe it’s what’s called ‘split personality disorder’ or something like that. A classic Jekyll and Hyde, if you will.”
“How can Grant not know of it?”
“Because it only happens to him in the evenings. He consistently assumes he was having a nightmare, or was asleep, hence the lack of memory. It’s quite handy.”
“I realized what had happened when he came back to work here, seven years ago. It took a while for Avery to come out, until Grant had thoroughly researched him. He was fascinated by Avery, in an angry kind of way – tired of being told how much he resembled the architect, especially after running into the cottage. Which, incidentally, he has no memory of, either. I realized that I could instruct him and befriend him as Avery, and from then on, it was easy to turn most of my spectre duties over to him. Even in the daytime, he’s invaluable – he’s so traumatized by running into me years ago, and by how many disappearances there have been, that he’s willingly chased off even those he considered friends.”
“Annoyingly, when he first saw your sister, Avery started seeing her as Delilah, and as all the other women who were poisoned, exacerbated by the times Miss Holcomb played dress-up. Then, of course, she started digging up the old mystery, and if she’d researched Avery, she might have found out about the mines. So, I started going along with Avery on this. Still, it’s the first time he’s been more trouble than he’s worth. Maybe if he hadn’t been triggered, you two wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“I’ve asked myself similar questions,” Zion muttered.
“Well, anyway. Have I missed any of your questions? I’d hate to leave you hanging before you hang. Although you’ll more likely drown. I expect that’s what Avery has in mind.”
“What’s in the poison?”
“A good question. Grant knows almost everything in it – mostly because Avery poisoned himself once. Easy to do, with that powder, but I think it was an experiment. There’s cyanide, abrin, water hemlock. . . I’m sure that’s what he guessed. There’s only one thing he missed, and he probably could sense that he was missing something.”
He rose and moved to the front of the cabin, waving Zion along.
“Look out the window,” Lyle invited him. “You may as well see where we are.”
He drew aside the checkered chintz curtains and beckoned. Zion moved warily to his side and peered out into the violet gloom.
The rain had stopped, and so had the thunder; the moon, however, had refused to waken that Halloween evening, and only the dim glow of the stars and the bit of fire and lamplight thrown onto the ground outside showed Zion anything.
It was a garden, and like the cottage, it was a ramshackle and fantastic one. Roses bloomed heavily beside haphazardly fall-blossoming lilacs that barely stood out from the darkness. Beyond that, before the wall of trees and sky, rose a thick, knotted hedge.
“That, my friend,” Lyle nodded, “is virginis requiem, the …original…Avery’s triumph. That wall of thorns is the source of the last toxin which Grant unfortunately couldn’t think of. It’s Avery’s own concoction - you wouldn’t think an architect would become a gardener, would you? But he saw the building blocks of them not unlike the blueprints and bricks of a cathedral. He loved them, for Delilah’s sake. He first intended to breed the perfect lilac, the perfect garden for her, before he brought her here to live. Hence the fairytale cottage that the insane man lived in for the rest of his life.”
“Unfortunately for many, his sanity took his skills down with him and that hedge is its result. More than one prick of a thorn, or crushing a handful of them into powder, will act as a catalyst for any poison it’s mixed with, and will put the nervous system into complete blackout. Which for you, is a very bad thing; your sister won’t be waking up, even if Grant has managed to prevent death for the time being. She could live,” Lyle propped his chin on his hand. “But it would be a permanent comatose state with significant damage to her nervous system. That wouldn’t be very nice, would it?”
“Those thorns also mean that there’s no way out of here except through the mines. For Avery and I, however, while it means that no one would ever get any information from dear Miss Holcomb, we still have to get rid of her before someone starts tracing us through the door you found.”
“And you think no one would investigate anyway? Not even an autopsy?”
Lyle shrugged.
“When they see you both wash up on the beach, and find your car crashed over the guardrail on that narrow road along the bay farther north, with a night like this, they won’t bother. Any further inquiries?”
“The people who have gone missing. Has Grant actually… done anything to them?”
“No. Miss Holcomb would be relieved, wouldn’t she. That was usually me, though some who went missing were completely unrelated. I can account for perhaps seven who wound up lost in the mines.”
“And how many times was it you who Melody saw?”
“If it was on the Lilac’s premises, it was me. Avery is the only one who ever showed up at your property. He did assist me with one of the break-ins, however.”
“I noticed. I put up hidden cameras, but that’s all I knew. The smashed bottles were a warning, weren’t they?”
“Mm. I was hoping we wouldn’t reach this unfortunate point we’re at tonight. You know, you two are the first failure Grant has ever had with scaring anyone off. I can’t imagine what kind of mental battles he’s been stuck with. Nor can I imagine what he’ll think in the morning, knowing that he was supposed to be at the ER with you two. I suppose he’ll think Avery - me in this case - dealt him a fantastic blow, and that is why he will have failed to help either of you. I wonder how he’ll survive after that,” Lyle pondered. “I hope it won’t make him of less assistance.”
The door clicked shut behind Zion as Lyle glanced at his watch.
“There you are, Avery. It’s a quarter to ten. I’ve just satisfied our guest’s questions. Are you ready?”
“I am. I suggest the ocean caves, the ones that get flooded at high tide.”
“Well, then, my thoughts exactly. Let’s take them down. Take the girl, will you?”
Lyle pulled Zion out of his seat and pushed him back down the passageway, Avery bearing Melody in his arms behind them, and Lys following, the false bones glowing in the dark. Zion’s flashlight lit the way, but now it was in Lyle’s free hand.
Zion shut his eyes for a second, for Lyle was prodding him along anyway. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael – if ever there was a night to need archangels, this was probably it. The names played over and over in his head, occasionally throwing in other saints, in his own private litany. If the Star of the Sea was what Mary was to the souls in purgatory, what if she could – well, bring the ghosts from the Lilac?
What was he thinking? He groaned a little and just hoped for something.
The tunnels seemed to slope on for miles, but distantly, growing nearer, came the echoing of waves, ringing off the walls; a watery glow came into view, tinging the walls turquoise.
“This will do,” Lyle announced, and nudged Zion into the next branch of cave. The rock sloped down, and the tide was lapping there, slowly blocking up the mouth of the cave where it ran in from the bay. The water was dark, but distant moonlight rippled its way in, and cast an eerie half-light on Avery’s face as he stood motionless, gazing at the rapidly disappearing horizon.
“Avery, you can just drop the girl in the water, if you haven’t something better in mind.”
“Mmm…no,” Avery said lightly, and held Melody over the flooded rock pool.
Zion paled, finding that the ropes around his torso only cut deeper into him when he tried to twist free. If Grant couldn’t see Melody - who might Avery see?
“Gra- Avery, wait! It’s Delilah!” He snapped desperately. “Can’t you see it’s Delilah?”
Avery’s head snapped around. “Delilah? Delilah is dead.” His face trembled.
“She will be, if you drop her!” Zion counted the seconds, feeling the lack of oxygen going to his head.
For an instant, Avery’s trepidation showed as he looked back to the face that lay against his shoulder.
Lyle was staring at Avery’s hesitation.
“Get on with it, Avery, he’s trying to twist your heart, like each of the women you’ve had to poison,” Lyle said impatiently. “Of course she reminds you of Delilah, they all did.”
Avery gave him a withering look and bent his head slowly closer to Melody, shifting nearer the light to study her face better.
“De…Lilah? Delilah? No, no, she doesn’t look the same,” Avery charged with a vicious glare.
“Do you think she would want you to recognize her, after what you’ve done? Avery, listen! Lyle is using you! Delilah wouldn’t want you to do this, Lyle just wants to-“
“How many times must I say enough?!” Lyle struck Zion hard across the face. “It’s not going to do anyone any good.”
“Especially you,” Zion retorted, but his eyes were fixed on Avery – Grant – whose face was still twisted and torn, as was he between two names.
“Delil…Mel? Melody?” He felt the name carefully, puzzled as it came to his lips unbidden.
“Oh shut up, Avery! If you don’t drop her in I’ll have to do it myself, so we can clean up this mess before we wind up in danger.”
Lyle tried to tug Melody away. Avery shook his head a little.
“I’m fine, Lyle.” He turned once more to the water, moving to throw Melody in without another thought.
The cave suddenly roared, as with the sound of ten speedboats, the noise all channeled down from the almost ice-cream-cone-thin crack of moonlight at the mouth. The water churned, indigo-black like oil muddied by mica, and crashed violently upwards over the lip of the rocks where Avery stood, drenching him and leaving Melody...dry?
Avery cried out, sounding strangled, and dropped the girl. Zion winced for her but likewise froze as chills ran up his spine, as though he, too, had been drenched.
The bioluminescent glow in the water was not from the sea.
Standing with the sea spray churning around his feet, face to face with Avery, was Avery: the Avery whose presence was a swirl as of smoke, dingy and faded as a mirror, an older, wearier twin to Grant, and his mouth hard as he gazed at his living doppelgänger.
“Grant…don’t let my life claim yours!”
Even Lyle went very still, eyes shooting back and forth between the water and Avery. He didn’t seem able to see the real Avery, but his fingers were nervously tightening on the pistol in his hand.
“I’ll just finish the job myself, and figure out the explanation for bullets later!” he growled at last, taking aim at Melody. He probably should have aimed at Zion first. No warning given, Grant spun around and dragged Lyle down to the ground, wrestling with him as Zion pushed his sister away from the oncoming tide.
A shot was fired, the sound ricocheting off the walls as the gun went off into Grant, leaving blood to spurt over the stones.
A sweet-scented breeze stirred through the open window, gently billowing the sheer curtains. Melody blinked slowly at its touch, lying there in the soft white room. The sun was streaming in, and there were green and gold branches waving outside the window, crowned by late-blooming lilacs; the leaves rustled comfortingly, and the bed she was lying in was comforting too - she frowned, confused, and tilted her head to find Angie curled up on the foot of the bed, scribbling with red and violet crayons.
“Angie?”
Angie’s head shot up, the gold curls bouncing.
“SHE’S AWAKE!” the child threw her head back and shrieked at the ceiling. The door flew open as Zion and their parents nearly tripped inside.
“Melody!” Their relief was so apparent that Melody looked around and finally realized that she was in some sort of hospital room.
“Melody, baby!” Mother kissed Melody’s cheek, who was still entirely confused.
Melody looked to Zion, finding the majestic purple bruise that covered the left side of his face.
“Zion, what happened to you?” she mumbled sleepily. “Where am I? I had such an awful nightmare, the spectre showed up at the ball and there was poison, and then Grant got shot-”
“It’s okay now,” Zion soothed her. “You’ve been in a coma for a couple of days, Mel: you were poisoned the same way the other ladies were. Lyle was behind it. You were getting too close to causing him trouble, if you had found that he was mining opal from land that wasn’t his, and I’m afraid he was using Grant to help him keep it a secret. But it’s all over! We got the antidote, and you’re safe now. For a while there, we weren’t sure you would ever wake up.”
“I’m so confused – what am I doing here? Where’s Grant?” she asked in a small voice. “It wasn’t a nightmare?”
“Easy, princess,” her father said quietly. “No, I’m afraid it wasn’t a nightmare. You’re in the Lakeville infirmary, dear. Grant is outside, but he can’t come in.”
“Why can’t he come in?” Melody demanded, growing more anxious. “Doesn’t he want to see me? Isn’t he okay?”
“He just can’t,” her mother hesitated. “I don’t think you should see him yet, sweetie. You need to rest.”
“Why not? I need him, please take me out there!”
“Now hold up, you just woke up from a coma, Melody!” her father said gently. “You can’t just go outside-”
“I need him, Daddy, please take me out, I need to see that he’s okay!”
He sighed. “As long as you won’t be walking, perhaps the nurse won’t mind.”
“Why can’t I walk?”
“Sweetie, you have nerve damage. It happens with these poisons. The doctors don’t know if you’re going to ever have the muscle strength you used to, and if you’ll really be able to walk.”
Melody twisted the corner of the coverlet. “But is Grant okay?”
“Dad, I’ll take her down,” Zion volunteered. He carefully gathered her up and nudged Angie to get the door, and took a short flight of stairs out onto the lawn.
The infirmary was nestled between the low peaks of two mountains, not far from Barnstable; the air was cool and crisp, but gently so, and the long, low buildings were set against rows of the occasional lilac, roses, and molded concrete benches.
Grant arose quickly from one of them, where he had been waiting silently, his left arm in a sling.
“Grant? Grant! Grant!”
His eyes were tired and silent when he looked back at her and he didn’t reply, as if he were waiting for a hanging.
Melody pushed gently at Zion’s shoulder, begging to be let down as she called insistently to Grant with outstretched arms.
“Put me down, Zion, please?”
“Melody…Mel, remember, you have damage to your nerves?” Zion reminded her. “You’re going to have trouble walking!”
“I want to go to Grant-”
“You can’t walk,” Zion insisted, as Melody made him put her down. She instantly crumpled and he caught her up under the arms. “See, there, Mel! You can’t. It’s going to be a while. We need to take care of you, okay?”
“Oh,” Melody blinked, then stretched her arms out to Grant again. “Graaaant!”
Reluctantly, Grant slipped down to the grass and lifted her up with his good arm.
“Grant, Grant! I thought it was a nightmare-” she slipped down into his arms, pressing her head to his shoulder. “Somebody shot you? How dare they! Are you okay?. . . I feel safe, now, though,” she added in a whisper, laying her hand carefully on the wounded arm.
Something like a sob came from Grant’s throat, and he might have put her from him if she wouldn’t have fallen over. Zion had stood back, arms folded with tired judgement.
“Melody, you don’t understand,” Grant whispered, letting her slip down onto the bench as he sank to the grass, everything drained out of him.
“I tried to kill you! Melody…! I’m the one who put the rouge in the costume room. You almost died twice because of me…and now you are damaged, maybe always, because of me!”
He was crying now as he looked at her, more broken than anything she had ever seen- she cupped her hands gently around his face.
“That wasn’t you,” she whispered back. “You aren’t Avery, and you didn’t create him. This isn’t what you’ve done. Avery is home now, and so are you, because I love you, Grant.”
He glanced back at her, the tears spilling worse, wavering between a scowl and disbelief.
“You can’t love me, Melody. How can you love me after what I’ve done? How could you love me when you’ve known me for all of three weeks?” he said bitterly.
“Then how could Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty love after a day?”
“I wouldn’t know. This isn’t a fairytale, Melody! I’ve learned that the hard way.”
“Why can’t it happen in ghost stories, too?”
The wind blew through the lilacs overhead, showering them with petals and the rich scent of jasmine, magnolia, and the rest, as Melody tilted her head and listened.
“I think lots of somebodies agree with me,” she confided to him, and gently tugged Grant up onto the bench beside her so that she could use his shoulder as a pillow.
“Who hurt you, Grant?”
His arm slowly came around her shoulder, but he hesitated.
“It was Lyle,” Zion offered helpfully. “As I said, he had been using Grant, and he caused the split personality of Avery by. . .tormenting poor Grant when he was little. That’s not something I would want to go through. Anyway, Grant actually saved you . . well really it was Avery, the real Avery. He came back to save Grant, and Grant kept Lyle from putting a bullet into you. And if Avery hadn’t erased Grant’s other personality, we wouldn’t have an antidote for you. By the way, we can confirm that the alternate ‘Avery’ is gone for good. Grant just needs to rest for a while.”
“Told you, you’re not evil,” Melody smiled up at Grant. “How could he hurt you?! My poor baby! I’d give him a smack and send him to Pluto, he’s super evil-”
“Heh, you don’t have to,” Zion laughed. “He’s done enough to be sentenced for a loooong time. Tell her about the antidote, Grant.”
“I. . . remember now that the diary which Lyle used to ‘curse’ me really was Avery’s diary,” Grant admitted slowly. “There are a lot of things I remember now that. . . got erased at first. When I was studying Avery, and after I ran into the spectre, I hunted for the cottage again while I was in one of my Avery episodes. And, not realizing that the thorns were poisonous, I ran into them – and into the makeup, too, because Avery had left a few samples out when he died. He died in the cottage, or maybe in the mines, I’m not sure. Anyway, I ended up poisoned by both, but I didn’t notice until after I had studied the diary. Avery had recounted his creation of the poison and the thorns, and said to the latter that ‘there is only one antidote to the deaths I deal to those who bring back my Delilah to me. . . those who must go home and rest. Only the lilacs I bred for my Lilac can complete any cure to them, and I shall not let my Delilah be touched.’”
“Wouldn’t you know that Avery’s briar could only be reversed by Delilah’s lilac? Seriously. But you also realized how to treat cyanide,” Zion prodded. “You must have gone and gotten hydroxy-whatever.”
“Hydra-oh, never mind, yes,” Grant returned with a small smile. “Anyway, that’s how I survived, and how I didn’t know that I knew how to help Melody, at least a little.”
“Was Avery the sixth ghost you mentioned, Grant, or did you mean the spectre?”
Grant weighed the question. “I started telling you that I didn’t know, when you asked me. I just knew that there was some other ghost that was always knocking about, trying to get my attention, but it wasn’t one of the ladies. I wondered if it was one of the men who had died, but it must have been Avery; I remember praying for him, during those hours of researching. Despite the murders, since they were due to his breakdown after his Delilah’s death, I suppose he must have been rescued to some level of purgatory. Perhaps he never knew what he had done, just as I didn’t know what I was doing. That must have been a great torment to him when he realized.”
“But how come he waited until 1908? Why’d it take him so long? To have a breakdown, I mean.”
“I’m not sure. It seems that he was okay for a while, just much more serious and devoted to Delilah, but he must have begun slipping downhill already. I think he just grew more and more broken, realizing how many years he had left without her. He became a loner, holing up in the cottage most of his days, and otherwise only coming to the Lilac when it needed repairs or expansions. By 1908, he must have slipped completely.”
“Well,” said Melody after a minute. “It’s . . . all over? Isn’t it? Maybe the ghosts can all rest, now.”
“And us?” Grant asked dryly.
“Not for me, you know you like, totaled my car, right? Now I gotta find a new one,” Zion complained, half in jest.
Melody gave a little gasp, tugging on his sleeve, and pointed to the far end of the garden, where a line of little trees formed a fence against the far-off view of the misty valley below.
It wasn’t just the town between the trees that they could see, for there stood Jasmine, Magnolia, Violet, Daisy, and Lavender, no longer veiled as in Melody’s first nightmare, but smiling, as they graciously bent their heads towards the three.
“They can, they finished their work here,” Melody wondered softly. “They must have needed to stay – until they could keep their deaths from repeating. They get to go home now?”
“Because of you, really.”
Grant squeezed Melody’s shoulders, and as they watched, Jasmine led the others, turning away, and as they stopped beneath the lilac branches, the wind came; they faded into a shower of petals that the breeze eddied gently across the ground.
“I bet that Avery is with his Delilah now, too,” Melody decided. “What of his cottage, and the poison? Also what exactly is happening with Lyle?”
“We’ve got a crew heading out there to burn down the thorns and make sure they go permanently extinct,” Zion replied. “Any of the rouge they can find is being confiscated, including the one that poisoned you. Regarding the cottage…well, a garden society might want it as an exhibit, and I think Avery might be happy with that.”
“As for Lyle, yeah, he’ll be in jail for at least five years, probably even longer. So much for his plans of moving to a Mediterranean villa or some such thing,” Zion scoffed. “And that means The Lilac has been left to Grant’s family again, and Grant, by the way, never actually hurt anyone else and wasn’t responsible for his actions, so the only question is: do you want to press charges?” he teased.
Melody crossed her arms.
“I press charges of him deciding he can’t marry me. Verdict?”
“Eh,” said Zion. “Guilty as charged, therefore, you can have my permission to be engaged now. Not so sure about our parents, but seems about time to me, since you’re not going to change your mind anytime soon.”
Melody’s father had joined them, frowning slightly, but it was half an attempt not to smile.
“I certainly have my reservations, after all of this. But with the assurance that you’re cured, Grant, and since I agree that Melody isn’t going to change her mind about you anytime soon-” He looked from one to the other and sighed. “Oh, alright. I’ll let you court her, for at least three months. Preferably six. Make it eight.”
“Three!” Melody exclaimed gleefully. “Grant, when we get married-“
Grant choked again.
“I’m so glad I haven’t got any lemonade -” but the smile was coming back as he met hers.
“We-e-ell,” Zion sniffed with a slow smile. “I guess I’ll keep his contact as FBIL for now.”
“-When we get married, we should have our theme be: ‘lilacs and opal.’”
“Oh no. Please no-”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” Melody snuggled her head down on his shoulder. “But anyway, did I ever tell you that I love you extremely much?”
Fin.
Thank you so much for reading In the Shadow of the Lilac! I hope that you have enjoyed this foray into one of my less-explored genres. If you’ve read all the way through, thank you for following along!
If you have any questions you’d like answered in a special behind-the-scenes post, or if there’s anything you think could be better clarified in the mystery, any questions/clues which I’ve missed wrapping up here, or if there are any scenes you think should be added or extended (for instance, Melody visually encountering all of the ghostly ladies, since she only saw Jasmine until this conclusion) please let me know!
Please note that in two weeks, I’ll be paywalling Episodes III-VI. I intend to edit this story through January or February for publication, and whenever it is close to being published (probably months from then, figure sometime in Spring or Summer) I’ll be deleting those episodes to encourage book purchases. I’ll be coordinating that with my publisher, so we’ll see what that date will be. All that to say, now’s the best time to be reading!
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What a happy ending! They're so cute. I was worried about how it was all going to wrap up, but it's all worked out nicely in the end. (FBIL!)
Nice conclusion. I love haunted hotel stories. This was lovely and such an undertaking. Well done, and thank you.